Review: ‘Poor Things’ Boldly Enters the Weird, Whimsical World of Bella Baxter

It has been years since I have watched any of the films by Yorgos Lanthimos, a director I had loved when beginning to get into film thanks to his unique and quirky vision as seen in films such as The Lobster or the much more sinister The Killing of a Sacred Deer (I distinctly remember the hyped anticipation for the latter in the time building towards its 2017 release). Lanthimos was then, and appears to still be, a highly stylised director whose vision is vividly expressed and maintained across his entire filmography to date. His characters tend to deliver their dialogue as drily as possible, maintaining a deadpan appearance as they deliver often bafflingly strange lines with faces so straight that the audience becomes (intentionally) confused, amused by the contrast between the straight-laced performances and the out-there dialogue. The situations captured within his films are just as odd as his directorial style and distinctive dialogue writing, bringing together memorable characters in situations frequently violent to the extreme.

I became exhausted with the same quickly identifiable quirks present in Lanthimos’ style after his first five feature films —…